Confluence between Library and Information Science and Digital Humanities in Spain. Methodologies, standards, and collections

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to study the relevance of heritage collections and the convergence of methodologies and standards traditionally linked to Library and Information Science (LIS) in the development of digital humanities (DH) research in Spain. This paper is based on a systematic review of scientific publications that are representative of DH in Spain and were published between 2013 and 2018. The analysis considered doctoral theses, journal articles and conference papers. The results highlight the synergies between documentary heritage, Library and Information Science and digital humanities. However, it appears that there is a scarcity of scientific literature to support the confluence of LIS and DH and a limited formal connection between heritage institutions and the areas of academia that reuse and enrich these source collections. The review of representative scholarly DH publications was mainly based on the metadata that describe the content of articles, thesis, and conference papers. This work relies on the thematic indexing (descriptors and keywords) of the analysed documents but their level of quality and consistency is very diverse. The topic of the study has not been explored before and this work could contribute to the international debate on the interrelation and complementarity between Library and Information Science and digital humanities. In addition, this paper shows the contribution that standards and documentary methodologies make to projects in which technology is applied to humanities disciplines. We propose that there is an urgent need to strengthen the “scientific relationships” between heritage institutions, as well as enhancing links between the academic field of DH and LIS in order to improve teaching and research strategies in conjunction.